Anti-Hungarian sentiment

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Anti-Hungarian sentiment (Hungarian: magyarellenesség or magyargyűlölet) refers to the view of the Hungarian people or of the Hungarian nation with suspicion, resentment, or hostility. Anti-Hungarian sentiment affects mainly the local Hungarian minorities in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia, but it occurred and occurs in different countries also.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Serbia 2 Current events 2.1 Romania 2.2 Slovakia 2.3 Serbia 3 References 4 See also

[edit] History

Anti-Hungarian sentiment has historicaly been present in most of the Carpathian basin for 1,100 years, as it was ruled by the Hungarians in large parts of this time period.

[edit] Serbia

Main article: 1944-1945 Killings in Bačka

• In the 1848-49 revolution Serbs fought against the Hungarians. Both Serb and Hungarian rebels brutally killed members of the other ethnic group. Many of them were civilians, including women, children and elderly people.
• After World War II there were killings of Hungarians organized by the Yugoslav Partisan Movement as a revenge for genocide that Hungarian fascists committed against Serb and Jewish civilians during the war. The victims of the partisans were mostly innocent civilians too.

[edit] Current events

[edit] Romania

Gheorghe Funar, who was the mayor of Cluj-Napoca between 1992 and 2004, was often accused of attempting to disintegrate the Hungarian minority, leading a series of anti-Magyar demonstrations, and making anti-Hungarian policies (which he described as "pro-Romanian" acts).

[edit] Slovakia

Main article: Beneš decrees

Main article: Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006

• The Beneš decrees concerned the expropriation of wartime "traitors" and collaborators accused of treason but also all ethnic Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship for people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin who were treated collectively as collaborators with the former Nazi regime. Similar legal acts existed in neighboring countries because of the expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe anticipated by the Potsdam Agreement between the USSR, the USA and the UK. Although Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia (as well as from other countries, such as Hungary, Poland, and Romania), Slovak politicians (most notably Vladimir Clementis) vetoed the expulsion of ethnic Hungarians. The decrees were applied only partially in the case of Hungarians and they were finally revoked in 1948.
• Under the autocratic style of administration led by Vladimír Mečiar, the administrative division of Slovakia was reorganized, and due to that, instead of the suggestion of SMK of creating one region encompassing most of the Hungarian minority, it was reorganized in a way to lower the number of ethnic Hungarians in each region under 50%, which did not allow SMK's hegemony in the autonomous regional assemblies.
• Although the rights of the Hungarians living in Slovakia are protected by domestic and international law, a chain of unofficial reciprocal incidents happened in the summer 2006. None of these events was endorsed by Slovakia's government and both Bratislava and Budapest tried to cool down the tense situation.
  • The first of these was the "tour guide affair" in May 2006 when two history teachers of a Hungarian student group from Szekszárd were interrogated by the Slovak police in Bratislava under the charge of working as an illegal tourist guide (i.e. acting as a guide without having a guide license). The teachers claim that they explained their students the role of the Bratislava Cathedral in Hungarian history. Although the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked for an official apology from his Slovak colleague, this was refused, but as it later turned out, there was no legislation enforcing a guide license for tour guiding in Bratislava at the time.
  • After a series of bitter comments from both sides, a short movie presumably^[1] depicting a group of Slovak nationalists^[2] instigating against the Hungarian minority by burning the Hungarian flag appeared on YouTube.com, which at the day, when it has been announced, it has been removed from YouTube due to terms of use violation.^[3][4] A day later, anti-Slovak graffiti appeared on Slovakia's embassy in Budapest.^[5] For further information, see Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006.

[edit] Serbia

Attacks against ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina caused by Serbian nationalists was a certain problem in 2004 and 2005 and rarely even nowadays. Although, the smaller number of attacks occurred before 2004 too, the attacks from 2004/2005 were to some extent triggered by the event in Temerin from 26 June 2004, when five young Hungarian men from this town attacked and tortured Zoran Petrović, an ethnic Serb from Novi Sad, and almost killed him.^[6]

Both, the Serbian Radical Party and the Socialist Party of Serbia have aggressive statements about Hungarians in Serbia. ^{[7] [8]}

In some cities and towns in Serbia anti-Hungarian graffiti can be found (such as Smrt Mađarima (Death for Hungarians), Mađari idi u Mađarskoj! (Hungarians, go to Hungary!), etc.).^{[citation needed]} In some cases, the Hungarians themselves wrote these graffiti in grammatically incorrect Serbian to show that "there is anti-Hungarian sentiment among Serbs" (For example, it was proved that one anti-Hungarian graffiti in Telep, a quarter of Novi Sad, was written by an ethnic Hungarian).^{[citation needed]}

There were attacks against the Vojvodina Hungarian politicians. József Kasza has been attacked about 30 times, although these attacks are largely connected to mafia that he was accused to had business with. The latest one is in 2005 when someone exploded a hand grenade outside of house of his neighbour (Although, his neighbour was the target, the Kasza claimed that he in fact was the real target which police investigators denied). Kasza and other Hungarian community leaders have received death threats in the past. In a March 2004, in a letter from the "Serbian Diaspora Summary Revolutionary Court", allegedly headquartered in Chicago, Kasza was warned: "You have been sentenced to death for your attempt to separate Vojvodina from Serbia". The same threat was sent to Serb politician Nenad Čanak, one of the leaders of the autonomous movement in Vojvodina.

HHRF (the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation) has documented 132 anti-minority incidents in Vojvodina since January 2003, consisting of harassment and physical violence against non-Serbs, the intimidation of ethnic Hungarian and (ethnic Serb) pro-autonomy advocates, the desecration of cemeteries (which is mainly act of Satanists, ^{[9] [10]} and the Serb cemeteries in cities across Serbia were also target of such attacks ^[11]), anti-Hungarian, anti-Croatian and anti-Semitic graffiti, and the vandalism of historic symbols. ^[12]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• 1944-1945 Killings in Bačka
• Hungarian minority in Romania
• Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş
• Slovakization
• Romanianization